A new realism

Jan van Eyck
(1385-1441)
was a contemporary of
Campin
and one of the enduring influences on his century. He had an eye
almost miraculously responsive to every detail or his world, not just
in that he saw it, but that he understood its value.
Van Eyck's natural habitat was one of luminous clarity; he saw the most
ordinary things with a wonderful sharpness and a great sense of their
awesome beauty. We know little about him personally, but he is the most
overwhelming of painters in the convictions he enables us to share.

Like the 17th-century Dutch painter
Vermeer,
van Eyck takes us into the light, and makes us feel that we, too,
belong there. Van Eyck's meticulously detailed
Adoration of the Lamb
is part of a huge
altarpiece;
painted on both sites, it is the largest
and most complex altarpiece produced in the Netherlands in the 15th
century. This monumental work still hangs in its original setting,
the Cathedral of St Bavo in Ghent, drawing the worshipper deeper and
deeper into the sacred world it makes visible.
There has been much debate over the parts the two van Eyck brothers,
Jan and Hubert, played in the creation of the
Ghent Altarpiece:
whether Jan, about whom we have the most information, was mostly
responsible, or whether it was Hubert, about whom we know almost
nothing. For what it is worth, Hubert is given precedence in the
inscription. It reads: ``The painter Hubrecht Eyck, than whom
none was greater, began this work, which his brother Jan, who was
second to him in art, completed at the behest of Jodoc Vijdt...''

A panel shows the sacrificial Lamb on the high altar, its sacred
blood pouring into a chalice. Angels surround the altar, carrying
reminders of the Crucifixion and in the foreground gushes the
Fountain of Life. Coming from the four corners of the earth are
the worshippers, a diverse collection that includes prophets,
martyrs, popes, virgins, pilgrims, knights, and hermits. It is likely,
as with many great religious works of the time, that van Eyck would
have been advised by a theologian, and these figures seem to represent
the hierarchy of the Church. Set in a beautiful, lush landscape, the
holy city gleams on the horizon, its outline very much that of a Dutch
city; the church on the right is probably Utrecht Cathedral.
The very perfection and accuracy, the convincingness of the vast
altarpiece explain why this mystic vision has laid such a hold on the
affections of those who see it. The
Ghent Altarpiece
envelops the viewer in a mood of contemplation, but any more rigorous
analysis becomes a massive intellectual effort. We can move more
easily into a smaller painting, such as his long, slender
Annunciation.